Each year, I do a lesson about Harriet Powers, a local famous American who created story quilts about the Bible.  I bring in a replica of her 1st Bible quilt, invite students to imagine the stories it might tell, share the story of Harriet Powers, read excerpts of the book Stitching Stars, and explain some of the panels of the quilt.  This year, I wondered how I might incorporate technology into the lesson, so I decided to try making a digital quilt.

At the conclusion of the lesson, students in the 1st grade class paired up and thought about what a quilt square might look like that told a story about Barrow School.  Then, they each got an iPad with the Glow Coloring app open.  They used the black background and glowing colors to quickly draw their square.  Finally, students placed their iPads on a table to make one large iPad digital quilt.

One of the funniest things that happened during this lesson was when a student drew on the iPad in glowing blue and then held up his finger to check to see if the blue paint was on his finger.  🙂

I really liked the end product, but I wish that I had more time for the lesson.  We didn’t really have time to finish the quilt squares.  I also would have liked for each student to tell the story of their square to another partner group.  We also could have looked at the collective quilt and thought about how it represented our school as a whole and what other stories might have been included.

All in all it was a good first attempt that I will definitely replicate and expand.

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